Use cases — SSH, SFTP, RDP & VNC for macOS

NAS administration from your Mac

SSH into Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS, or Unraid; transfer files via SFTP; tunnel admin UIs — all from SSHive.

NAS appliances run a stripped-down Linux (Synology's DSM, QNAP's QTS, TrueNAS's FreeBSD/Linux mix, Unraid's Slackware) and expose SSH for power-user management. From a Mac, daily tasks are: drop files via SFTP, edit Docker / shell scripts, check `df -h` and SMART status, occasionally restart a service. SSHive makes this fast — saved profile per NAS, snippets for the common tasks, and tunnels for accessing DSM/QTS web UIs over an encrypted channel.

Enable SSH on Synology DSM

In DSM web UI: Control Panel → Terminal & SNMP → check "Enable SSH service". Default port is 22. Use your DSM admin user. Best practice: create a dedicated admin user, disable root SSH, enable key-based auth. SSHive works the same way as for any Linux SSH host.

Tunnel DSM web UI for safe remote access

Synology DSM is on port 5000 (HTTP) or 5001 (HTTPS). Don't expose these on your router. In SSHive, in the NAS profile, add Local forward: 5001 → localhost:5001. Connect via SSH, then open `https://localhost:5001` in your browser. DSM is reachable encrypted via SSH. Same trick for QNAP QTS (port 8080), TrueNAS (port 80/443), Unraid (port 80).

Frequently asked questions

Will SFTP transfers be slow over a NAS?+

On gigabit Ethernet, SFTP through SSH typically saturates the link (110-120 MB/s). The bottleneck is the NAS's internal storage IOPS and CPU for SSH encryption. NASes with weak ARM CPUs (older Synology DS series) can struggle past 50 MB/s. Use AES-NI-capable encryption ciphers (`aes128-gcm@openssh.com` is fast).

Can SSHive replace the Synology Drive desktop client?+

No — Synology Drive does background sync and conflict resolution. SSHive's SFTP is for explicit file ops. Use both: Drive for ongoing sync, SSHive for ad-hoc admin tasks.